Todd said the students often began digging at 5 a.m. and worked until the heat and wind became unbearable, usually around noon. In the afternoon, the students washed the pottery they discovered and analyzed the shards in a lab.

Cantler said it was an amazing trip, both because of the dig and the opportunity to tour Israel.

“I wanted to experience something different,” she said.

Todd said he was drawn to the dig by his interest in religion and his childhood fascination with the fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

“Inside of us all we want to discover something,” he said. “I had to go. I was pumped.”

McCane said Todd joked for weeks about finding a mosaic and was ecstatic when he and Cantler did.

Todd said he danced after the find.

“I just wanted to find something, anything,” he said. “I felt like I was a little kid digging in a sandbox.”